convicted MPs

Don Ken said it was designed to heed the president's call for "reconciliation and forgiveness".

One of the five-person committee's first acts will be to consider calls for several former MPs who are currently in jail to be pardoned.

Five former MPs were sent back to prison in June for their role in conspiring to pervert the course of justice when they worked to have themselves pardoned in 2015.

They had conspired with the then-Speaker of Parliament to have their corruption convictions absolved, in a decision that was eventually overturned by the President.

The Court of Appeal in Vanuatu on Friday quashed the convictions of the 11 jailed former MPs one of whom in October 2015 controversially used his acting presidential powers to pardon himself and the ten other than MPs of bribery convictions.

The Vanuatu Daily Post reported that the Court of Appeal ruling said the main reason for overturning their convictions was that it felt the trial judge at the time should have tried them as a group of people committing a single offence and not as individuals committing multiple offences.

RNZ reports they are among 14 MPs serving terms after being found guilty of receiving money to cross the floor of parliament and change the government.

A former speaker Marcelino Pipite had pardoned himself and his colleagues of the bribery convictions while he was acting president during the president's absence overseas.

Pipite has now been sentenced to four years in prison to be served after his jail sentence for three years for bribery.

In October, 14 MPs were convicted on bribery and corruption charges.

The Supreme Court also granted the prosecution's request that parliamentary entitlements paid to the politicians cease.

14 MPs were jailed after they were convicted of bribery in October, which triggered a deadlock in parliament that prompted the president to call the snap election.

The four other convicted former MPs -- including former Prime Minister Moana Carcasses, who spearheaded the payments -- have put forward relatives or former secretaries to stand on their behalf.

Supreme Court Justice David Chedwynd had granted a prosecution application that the Leadership Code be invoked. 

All 15 men were convicted on bribery and corruption charges in October with Jimmy the only one not jailed - he was given a suspended sentence after pleading guilty.

The court also granted the prosecution's request that parliamentary entitlements paid to the politicians cease.